Premier league..Victims of our own success?

comment by Plastic Manc (U9526)
posted 1 hour, 14 minutes ago
94,90 and 100 last 3 seasons in La Liga whilst 87, 86 and 89 in the PL. Might suggest that PL teams take more points off each other but would need to look over greater period of time.
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Maybe. But who's to say those sides wouldn't have taken just as many points in the PL, bearing in mind they've performed so much better in Europe than the PL sides in the same spell.


Anyhow, fwiw, the most competitive years in La Liga imo were round about the turn of the century.

1998–99 Barcelona (79) Real Madrid Mallorca
1999–2000 Deportivo (69) Barcelona Valencia
2000–01 Real Madrid (80) Deportivo Mallorca
2001–02 Valencia (75) Deportivo Real Madrid
2002–03 Real Madrid (78) Real Sociedad Deportivo
2003–04 Valencia (77) Barcelona Deportivo

Max. no of wins for the champion in any of those years was 24, winners twice won just 21 games.

But really if you look across the big leagues, there seems to be a similar trend where the top sides tend to amass more points than they used to.

Nowadays, most seasons are won with 85 points or more, almost never under 80.

10-15 years ago it was the other way round. Champions on 80+ were realtively rare, 85+ almost unheard of.

There's loads of reasons - Spanish and German clubs have a strong core of home nation players, Spanish and German academies have been producing technically better players than us for a while now, so that's your starting point.

European games are generally officiated to continental standards.

Winter break to rest up for the knock out round.

European games are generally officiated to continental standards.
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I do think you have a point with your first statement, but the bit about the officiating is a common misconception stemming from the old "us and them" mentality the overly-simplistic media tend to convey.

It assumes a 'continental sameness' that has never existed and never will. There's no such thing as a single set of "continental standards".

Even at the risk of over-simplifying and stereotyping myself, I'd say there are differences in refereeing styles between Northern and Southern/Mediterranean Europe that are linked to an extent to cultural interpretations of what is acceptable or not and to the interpretation and administration of justice. This translates into different approaches to gamesmanship and theatrics, to physical contact and cautionary/disciplinary measures, for example.

PL and Liga could serves as examples at opposite ends of the scale, but there's a lot of ground in between. It's even misleading to talk about Skandinavian or Dutch refs versus Spanish or Greek officials, because there are different cultural identities in every country and, beyond that, a plethora of differences from one individual to the next. Having a Dutch ref doesn't necessarily mean the officiating will be closer to PL than Liga standards, but it does increase the likelihood.

What you do find almost invariably across cultures is that the losing side finds more at fault with the officiating than the winners. It's only natural.

Also, if we're comparing Liga and PL, the impact of the winter break is also overstated, imo.

The festive break in Spain covers only Xmas and the New Year, barely a week or ten days. The overall number of fixtures is very similar. England has two cups to Spain's one, but Spain's is played over two legs, so teams going further in the competition might actually end up playing more matches. There is also fixture congestion in Spain, it just happens at a time different to the Xmas/New Year.

And it can't really serve as an excuse on an individual level either. Last season, for example (if stats coarsely taken from ESPN are correct), Messi started 7 games more (56) than any outfield Chelsea player (Hazard & Terry, 49), and a whopping 17 games more than any of City's (David Silva, 39).

Toni Kroos and Cristiano Ronaldo started 52 and 51 respectively, again more than any of the City or Chelsea squad. You would probably find similar stats amongst other sides.

You might find the opposite if English sides were going further in Europe.

Itsonlyagame - my main point about officiating really, is as bad as the standard is, I think our officials are still better than pretty much every other country in Europe, hence continental standards. I probably didn't explain that very clearly though..

Fair enough grated. I actually like how PL refs tend to handle gamesmanship and how they administer discipline, they generally have a much more calming influence on the players than our own refs. That said though, I also feel they're very often overly permissive. Spanish sides also have to learn to deal with that.

Only last night, there were several instances where Atkinson (I think it was him) waved on play after challenges that would have been awarded as fouls every time in La Liga. It seemed to confound the Barça players more than it did Leverkusen's (I presume the BL also tends to allow more physical contact), but they had no choice but to get on with it.

Had they lost though, I'm sure there'd have been complaints about the ref's performance, even though it was a very good one imo.

The reffing is inconsistent, Juve Sussed out that that ref wasn't too bothered about a bit of rough stuff long before we did during our recent game.

Of course it's inconsistent, Boris. There are roughly 50 countries in Europe and over 150 UEFA referees.

You can't blame the ref for Juve wising up to him quicker than your guys.

Also, squads nowadays are made up of players from every corner of the globe, surely their own approaches and behaviours are a mixed bag too.

You can't blame the ref for Juve wising up to him quicker than your guys.

I'm not, I'm criticising our naviety if anything but that wouldn't be a factor if all the referees applied the rules in the same way.

What was the ref like tonight, Boris?